Viral simulations in dreams: The effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on threatening dream content in a Finnish sample of diary dreams
Consciousness and Cognition February 8, 2024 Ville Loukola, Jarno Tuominen, Santeri Kirsilä et al. 4 citations
During the COVID-19 pandemic, dreams did not become more threatening or nightmarish overall compared to before the pandemic. Analysis of 1,132 pandemic-era dreams and 166 pre-pandemic dreams found no differences in the number of threatening events, disease-related threats, or severity of threats between the two periods. However, the minority of dreams that directly referenced the pandemic did contain more threats, disease-related threats, and severe threats. The findings suggest the pandemic's impact on dream content was limited to a subset of dreams rather than causing a general increase in threatening dream content.